Monthly : January 2017

It’s a well-intended notion. But the consequence is a downward spiral of mediocrity.

Two things in our culture today make this phenomenon exponentially worse:

1. If an employer can’t confront his employees matter-of-factly about poor performance (and most can’t), he’s actually hurting them in his quest for niceness. Everyone’s job security suffers as a result. And so do said employee’s chances for future employment.

2. In schools this misguided notion is taken a step further by actually rewarding mediocrity. ”Everyone gets a trophy. Yay!” Now the unemployable are also the entitled (“I deserve a trophy – I showed up”) and the victimized (“the bad man told me I didn’t do a good job”).

We can see this phenomenon in full effect when you visit a friend’s home.

Ask yourself … would you tell them? Would you tell them their clothes smell of mold? Would you tell them the disarray doesn’t make them look “creative”? Would you tell them the other one thousand judgements about their character that go through your mind?

Of course not. You’re a nice person. It’s not your place to judge.

Hey, I hear you. I don’t think I could do it, either. (It’s one thing to confront employees. The ones who can’t take it leave. And so will confronted friends, so …)

But what I can do is judge – and improve – myself. Then, once I have my own house in order enough to be held up as an example, I can invite them over to see for themselves.

(Maybe there’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere.)

Are you with me?

Let’s start with our living spaces …

This book is a great place to start. It’s totally congruent with what we teach at Simpleology (especially the stuff in Orange Belt about Kankyo Kaizen). And it includes some powerful tricks for getting your house in show-off-worthy shape faster than you may think is possible.